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Literature Potpourri

Here are a smattering of interesting articles on my desk I've wanted to blog about, but haven't had time to work into full posts. Writing about them here briefly doesn't preclude anyone (you?) from posting about these stories in greater detail later!

The February issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, or JGIM, should be subtitled "The GeriPal Issue." Lots of great articles on social media, geriatrics, and palliative care topics, including:

An article by Matthew DeCamp on social media and conflicts of interest. Did you know that 65% of patients trust information about cancer obtained from the internet? (for comparison, 93% trusted information from a physician). Lot's of nefarious potential here for big pharma and docs in their pay to steer patients to their products without adequate disclosure.

Elizabeth Eckstrom wrote a terrific thought piece about challenges in cancer screening in older adults. She laments that, "There is little research to guide busy primary care providers and practices in effectively performing cancer screening." Amen to that. I like the way she asks the tough questions, like, "Can older adults understand screening complexities in the context of multi-morbid illness?"

Deb Barnes presents a prognostic index for recovery of function, persistent dependence, or death following a hospital acquired disability. Older adults don't just care about whether they will live or not, they also care about what state they will be living in. Functional ability, or the ability to provide basic daily care for oneself is a part of that. The article features cool multicolored triangles that visualize this three part outcome.

A paper by Yoko Tarumi in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management adds to the weight of evidence that docusate adds nothing to senna based laxatives for opioid related constipation.

AAHPM decided to keep the "H" (for hospice), as reported by Tim Quill in the fall AAHPM quarterly (online for members only). See this previous post introducing the controversy. The process of deciding about the "H" was thoughtfully done, including focus groups and a member survey. Only 11% of members responded (guilty as charged) but 87% of those who responded felt the current name describes "who we are and what we do."

by: Alex Smith

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Please note in the original post I transposed two letters in the name of the author for the docusate study, it should be Tarumi, not Tamuri. Also the link to the journal of pain and symptom management isn't working today for some reason, so I changed the link to the pubmed page.

I'm glad that the newest study is consistent with the idea that addition of docusate to senna is of no utility. The need for adding docusate to senna (or bisacodyl) is on my list of things that I learned when I was training that we no longer think are true. I miss being able to use the phrase "mush without the push", however. Advocating just senna without docusate would be "Push instead of mush", and that doesn't have the same ring.

It's good to see that Louise Walter remains part of the conversation about cancer screening. She has been a consistent voice asking us to consider the risks associated with screening and to urge reconsideration of screening in life-limited individuals. Her life expectancy by age and health quartile graph is a useful tool for practice (and for teaching purposes).

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GeriPal (Geriatrics and Palliative care) is a forum for discourse, recent news and research, and freethinking commentary. Our objectives are: 1) to create an online community of interdisciplinary providers interested in geriatrics or palliative care; 2) to provide an open forum for the exchange of ideas and disruptive commentary that changes clinical practice and health care policy; and 3) to change the world.

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GeriPal's mission is to improve the disemination of information in both geriatics and palliative medicine. GeriPal was created with the support of the Division of Geriatrics at the University of California San Francisco. Its content though is strictly the work of its authors and has no affiliation with or support from any organization or institution. All opinions expressed on this website are solely those of its authors & do not reflect the opinions of any academic institution or medical center. This web site does not accept advertisements. All email addresses collected by GeriPal for feed distribution will be kept confidential and will never be used for commercial reasons. If you reproduce the material on the website please cite appropriately. For questions regarding the site please email Alex Smith, MD (aksmith@ucsf.edu) or Eric Widera, MD (eric.widera@ucsf.edu)